Create/Edit a Mastering assignment

1. Enter the Assignment Title, which you and students will see in the Assignments list and in the MyLab & Mastering Mobile Dashboard.

   • The title can include upper- and lowercase letters, numbers, spaces, and other keyboard characters. If scores will be transferred to a learning management system gradebook, do not include extended ASCII characters, such as en-dashes, em-dashes, or accents.
   • Saving the assignment at this step creates the assignment so you can return to edit it later. Students don't see the assignment until you make it available by setting availability dates on page  Preview and Assign.

2. Select an available Category, or create a new category.

   A category is a saved set of grading, presentation, and security settings for assignments. After you select a category, you can customize many of the settings for this specific assignment.

   More on assignment categories

3. [Optional] Click Edit Settings to confirm or customize grading, presentation and security settings for the assignment. For example, you might want to give this particular assignment a time limit.
4. [Optional] Add Staff Notes for this assignment, which are visible only to instructors and section instructors for this course.

The assignable items on this page are from the course's Item Library, and are designed specifically for the textbook or other source that is selected for the course.

Important: If you are editing an assignment that is already available to students, be aware that removing any item deletes any student work on that item. Removal happens as soon as you click the item check box. Even if you click again to reinstate the item, student work is lost.

1. Filter the list of assignable items by selecting from the drop-down lists and check boxes near the top of the page.

   The filter options depend on the textbook or other resource used for the course.

   Advanced: You can also click  Create New Item or  Import Items to add your own items to the Item Library.

2. [Optional] Sort the list of filtered items by clicking a column header.

   An arrow indicates the current sort column. To reverse the sort on the same column (switch between ascending and descending), click that heading again.

3. Add items to the assignment by clicking the check box next to an item or next to a grouping name (to select all items in that grouping). You can also select all items in the filtered list by clicking the check box in the Assign column header.

   Or preview an item by clicking its title, and then assign the item by clicking Assign Item at the bottom of the preview window. From there you can click Next Item and Previous Item to preview and assign additional items.

   Notes:

   • The information icon next to an item means that the item is in another assignment in the same course. Click the icon to see details.
   • The first time you assign a new answer type, consider reassigning the corresponding item from the Introduction to Mastering assignment. That assignment teaches students how to work each kind of item in your Mastering course.
   • Be aware of the estimated time and difficulty level of the items you select, especially if this will be a timed or pooled assignment.

At the bottom of the Organize Content page, you can see the total of the median times and the average of difficulty levels of all the content items you selected for the assignment. Based on this information you can remove items or adjust point values for individual items. Exception:

If you pool the assignment, you must set a single point value for all the items.

You can also organize your content in other ways. For example, you can:

• Specify that items be worked in a particular sequence, or that the item sequence be randomized.
• Add messages to appear at the beginning of the assignment or above a specific item.
• Pool the assignment so each student is given only a subset of all the items you select.
• See which items have randomizable variables, and select whether to apply randomization.

Depending on the textbook for the course, assignment items might already be associated with learning outcomes.

Learning outcomes help you assess student understanding or skills, based on assignment results. More about learning outcomes

If you are satisfied with the provided outcomes, or if you don't plan to use learning outcomes, you can click Skip this step. Otherwise, you can:

• Create your own outcomes by clicking  Add/Edit My Learning Outcomes.
• Select or remove outcomes for an item by clicking in the item row.

1. [Optional] See the assignment as students will see it by clicking the preview the assignment in the student view link. This is the same view you see by clicking Student View on the assignment page. View an image

   

2. To make the assignment visible to students on their Assignments list and in the MyLab & Mastering Mobile Dashboard, set the Due Date and Availability to Students dates. Consider setting the Available Until date to match the course end date, so students can use the assignment later for review.

   Tip: You can postpone this step and set the due dates and availability for several assignments at once. See Edit due dates and availability for multiple assignments.

3. [Optional] If available, click Yes to add an Adaptive Follow-Up for this Parent assignment. View an image

   

4. Click Save and Finish or Save Assignment and Follow-Up, and click OK.